Perhaps the most hotly debated issues today centers on the possible link between violence on television and aggressive behavior in people. There is some evidence that portrayals of violence in the mass media provoke aggression in the real World as well as in the laboratory. There is a brief, but sharp increase immediately after televised heavyweight fights; from 1973-1978, North American homicide rates increased by 12.46 percent after publicized prized fights such as the match between Ken Norton, Sr. also known as The Black Hercules and Jimmy Young, and others fights Ken Norton had with Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Earnie Shavers, Jerry Quarry, Ron Stander, Duane Bobick, and Randall Cobb.

Bad behavior is contagious. Celebrating fights is to celebrate ruthless behavior, which makes people more likely to engage in aggressive behavior because it is considered a socially acceptable outlet, so that may be the reason the spike in violence happened.

Deviance and conformity are integral components of the basic structure of society. Because norms provide guidelines for human behavior, their violation almost always has important consequences for the deviant and the rest of society. From a structural functionalist perspective, some of these social consequences are dysfunctional (having a potentially disruptive impact) and others are functional (contributing to the overall function of society).

For example, functionalist contends that when norms are violated: People may be harmed or injured, norms may be threatened, there can be enormous financial, social, and emotional costs, and social order often is disrupted. There is concern that violation of one norm may lead to the violation of others. Because of their potentially negative consequences, most of us are well aware of these dysfunctional aspects of deviance, but we may be unaware that social deviance can also be functional and have potentially beneficial consequences for society and individuals.

Personality assessments provide us with clues to some of the most perplexing human events. Consider Jack Tripper from Three’s Company; Three’s Company is an American sitcom, based on a British Situational Comedy, Man About the House, and it aired from 15 March 1977 to 18 September 1984 on ABC. The plot revolves around three single roommates:  Jack Tripper, Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers), and Janet Wood, they all live together in a Victorian apartment building in Santa Monica, California owned by Stanley and Helen Roper.

What was so fascinating about the American versions of Three’s Company is that the blonde lead was replaced at least five times. Some report it was because she was too European for American TV, but maybe there was more than meets the eye going on here?

Even before Chrissy Snow was cast as the lead blonde in the TV production, there was an unaired pilot and the main character was to be a blonde called Samantha, the character that would become Chrissy was portrayed by Susanne Zenor. Susanne Zenor was not picked for the second filming, so the actress Susan Lanier took over the role as Chrissy, but she was too European, so Chrissy Snow became Suzanne Somers.

Jack Tripper and Janet Wood got along well, but Chrissy was finally written out of the show, in scenes, Chrissy was visiting her family and she would call Jack and Janet on the phone and these scenes were filmed early in the day so Chrissy would be offset by the time Jack and Janet arrived.  Finally, the actress who played Chrissy Snow, Suzanne Somers, was fired and never mentioned again.

However, Suze Lanier-Bramlett, who played Chrissy on the second unaired pilot is seen on the show’s ending for the first seveal seasons alongside Jack and Janet, where the three are tossing bread to seagulls at the beach. This ending was carried over from the pilot and was not re—shot with Suzanne Somers as Chrissy. Sources report the actors were unhappy because of the backstage atmosphere.

Chrissy was the dumb blonde and she was eventually replaced by her Cousin Cindy Snow. So there were three actresses who played Chrissy Snow, and Chrissy’s real character name was Samantha, but she went into the witness protection program and became Chrissy Snow. So after Chrissy Snow disappeared (it was often joked about on the show that she was kidnapped or killed) she was replaced by her cousin Cindy Snow, played by Jenilee Harrison, she was not a ditzy as Chrissy, but clumsy.

Cindy’s last appearance was in April of 1982, in an episode called Janet Wigs Out, near the end of season six. Cindy and Janet have a falling out when Janet, who always had a crush on Jack, buys a blonde wig (Jack had a thing for blondes) and Janet with her blonde wig develops a condescending attitude toward her friends—Cindy and Jack. Janet wants to keep her wig a secret from her date, Cindy tries to prevent herself from revealing the truth. Cindy also did not last long, she was phased out and replaced by Terri Alden (Priscilla Barnes), but the two actresses were on set together.

Ironically, the actress who played Terri Alden (Priscilla Barnes) had auditioned to play the role of Cindy, but was turned away. Terri Alden was the token blonde, she was smart, and strong, a registered nurse, so she was far less ditzy than her predecessors, and was written in as Jack and Janet’s new roommate.

So as Three’s Company was winding down, Jack meets another young blonde, Vicky Bradford, a lovely young stewardess and Terri convinces Jack to move in with her. So basically, there were six young blonde females on the show, with only the strong one Terri making it to the end before Jack is forced to move on with another woman. Besides Jack, the only other character, who was remained constant was Janet.

Jack Tripper is known as a ladies’ man, he was in the navy and was a boxer, but was bullied by other men. Jack has a one bedroom apartment, and the two female roommates share a room. So Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt) shared a room with Chrissy Snow, Cindy Snow and Terri Alden, and they all shared an apartment with Jack at some point.

However, Janet and Chrissy were the original roommates, and they lived with a lady named Eleanor, Eleanor got pregnant and moved away to have her baby. Janet and Chrissy found Jack sleeping in their shower, after Eleanor’s going away party. At that time, Jack was homeless and sleeping at the YMCA and Janet and Chrissy asked him to be their roommate.

The landlord, Stanley Roper, was not fond of the idea of a young man sharing an apartment with two young attractive women. However, Janet convinced Stanley that Jack was gay to alleviate the landlord’s concern about the living arrangement, and jack was allowed to move in under this guise. Janet is depicted as the intelligent, reliable roommate, and she is Italian and speaks fluent Italian and loves plants, she is the counterpart to the more ditzy blondes Chrissy, Cindy, Terri and Vicky.

In the episode leading to the series finale of Three’s Company, Janet meets with Philip Dawson at a reading of a will. In the series finale, she gets married to him in her apartment with Jack and Terri Present. After Janet returns from her honey moon, all three roommates (Terri, Jack, and Janet) leave the apartment and go their separate ways—Terri heads to Hawaii (but with no mention of reason) and Jack moves in with Vicky Bradford above his bistro. Some say that the blondes were drugged and raped.

There is a backlog of at least 65 murder cold cases, dating back to the 1970s in Santa Monica, California.  However, more interesting, from 20 November 1976 to 18 April 1979, while the show was being filmed, Thor Nis Christiansen was serial killers from Solvang, California. He committed his first three murders in late 1976 and early 1977, killing young women of similar appearances from Isla Vista, California. His crimes motivated large demonstrations opposed to violence against women, and in favor of better transportation for the young people residing in Isla Vista.

In 1979, Thor Nis Christiansen killed a young African American woman from Los Angeles, California. A fifth intended victim escaped with a bullet in her head, and later identified him in a Los Angeles, California bar. Thor Christiansen was obsessed with fantasies of shooting women and having sex with their corpses. He stole a .22 caliber pistol from a friend and committed his first three murders. He then moved to Oregon, lost weight, and moved back to Santa Barbara County to complete his high school diploma at junior college.

Thor Christiansen moved into an apartment in Goleta, with a woman in her twenties. They met while she was hitch hiking. While Thor Christiansen was living with her, he committed another murder. Sources indicate Thor Christiansen’s modus operandi was to meet young female victims, while they were hitchhiking, he would then shoot them in the head with the .22 caliber pistol and sexually assault them postmortem.

Thor Christiansen shot his fifth intended victim, Lydia Preston, in the head, inside his vehicle on 18 April 1979, she escaped with severe injuries. Although several young women had disappeared from Isla Vista, in late 19766, Thor Christiansen’s first confirmed victim was Patricia Marie Laney, who disappeared 18 January 1977.

The next day her body was found on an isolated road in Refugio Canyon, in Santa Ynez Mountains. Jacqueline Anne Rook’s body was found the day after that, near Laney’s. Mary Ann Sarris’ body was found on 22 May 1977, near Los Alamos. Laura Sue Benjamin’s body was found in a culvert near Angeles Forest Highway and Big Tujunga Road in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. She was reported to have been a prostitute. All of the victims were female and ranged from age 19—23.

These situations remind me of Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. Attacks ascribed to Jack the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes, who lived and worked in the slums of London, and whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations.

The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge, or may he was a butcher or chef. Jack the Ripper only had five victims, but his crimes were seen as the personification of all the evils with which the East End of London was associated.

Jack the Ripper’s victims were Mary Nichols 31 August 1888, Annie Chapman murdered 8^th September 1888, Elizabeth Stride murdered 30 September 1888, Catherine Eddowes, also murdered on 30 September 1888, Mary Kelly, murdered on 9^th November 1888. The Jack the Ripper murders also serve as a reminder of a not too distant past when a whole section of London society fought a daily battle against poverty and starvation.

Violent crimes are considered the most threatening because they involve offenses against persons. They include homicide (the willful taking of a person’s life), aggravated assault (an attack with the intent to inflict severe bodily harm), forcible rape (sexual intercourse against the victim’s will), and robbery (stealing from a person by the use of threat of force).  The United States of America is the most violent industrial/postindustrial nation in the World and one of the easiest nations in which to acquire a gun.